Added on Thursday, August 23, 2012  Gary Hurley

Oriental Rotary Inshore Slam

Anchoring their winning weight with a 5.62 lb. flounder, Eric Jones and Sammy White, from Ernul, NC, added a speckled trout and a red drum to make up a three-fish aggregate of 15.0 lbs. on their way to earning the top spot in the first annual Oriental Inshore Slam tournament. The Oriental Rotary Club also held their 21^st Tarpon Tournament concurrently August 17-18, but no tarpon were released and the prize money rolled over to next year’s event.

Jones and White had fished several days in the week leading up to the event, gaining some insight into where they wanted to be on tournament day.

“We were feeling fairly confident,” Jones explained. “We headed to Vandemere Creek off the Bay River to get started.”

The anglers fished hard, working the shorelines with their trolling motor and casting Gulp baits, but they had only a keeper speckled trout that Jones landed to their credit when they decided on a change of venue mid-morning.

“We had to go to Oriental for the weigh-in, and I told my buddy we’d have a long ride,” Jones recalled. “So we decided to put the boat on the trailer and go to some spots I know in the Neuse River around 10:30.”

After hauling Jones’ 21’ Sea Hunt to Oriental, the anglers re-launched and headed across the Neuse to Turnagain Bay. Their second spot produced substantially more action than the first.

“We beat the banks in there with the trolling motor again,” Jones said. “We caught several puppy drum right away, then one that was 34 inches.”

After releasing another over-slot red, White finally hooked up with a slot fish, again on a Gulp bait. Soon after they upgraded the 22” red to an upper-slot fish, and things were looking up.

Their standout catch didn’t come until the pair were talking about the ride back to Oriental.

“We had to be weighed in by 5:30,” Jones explained, “and I knew we had about a 20 minute run, so I said we had about 45 minutes left to fish. Shortly after I got that out of my mouth, Sammy got a bite.”

Though it was clearly a large fish, the anglers didn’t at first know what they’d hooked.

“I thought it was a skate,” Jones went on. “I finally saw it beside the boat and of course I grabbed the dip net.”

The big flatfish wasn’t quite ready to give up, however, and made a final run.

“I told him not to pull too hard,” said Jones. “I said we could take all the time we needed on that fish.”

When White gently worked the flounder back to the boat, Jones was ready, and the flatfish was soon on deck.

“When he hit the net, I knew we had a big fish,” he concluded. “I didn’t know we’d win then, but I knew we’d at least place.”

The fat flounder pushed them nearly three pounds past their nearest competition.

Capt. Rennie Clark, of Tournament Trail Charters, also scaled an inshore slam of a trout, flounder, and drum totaling 12.10 lbs. to finish second in the Inshore Slam. Pete Roche, of Cary, NC, rounded out the top three with a flounder and speckled trout weighing 4.56 lbs.

Both the Inshore Slam and the Tarpon Tournament will be bumped up to July 26-27^th for 2013 and operate under the banner of the Oriental Rotary Inshore Tournament.

More information on this and next year’s events is available at www.orientalrotary.org.